Best marathon: 2:23:57 (2007, St. George). Won the Top of Utah Marathon twice (2003,2004). Won the USATF LDR circuit in Utah in 2006.

Draper Days 5 K 15:37 (2004)

Did not know this until June 2012, but it turned out that I've been running with spina bifida occulta in L-4 vertebra my entire life, which explains the odd looking form, struggles with the top end speed, and the poor running economy (cannot break 16:00 in 5 K without pushing the VO2 max past 75).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Qualify for the US Olympic Trials. With the standard of 2:19 on courses with the elevation drop not exceeding 450 feet this is impossible unless I find an uncanny way to compensate for the L-4 defect with my muscles. But I believe in miracles.

Long-Term Running Goals:

2:08 in the marathon. Become a world-class marathoner. This is impossible unless I find a way to fill the hole in L-4 and make it act healthy either by growing the bone or by inserting something artificial that is as good as the bone without breaking anything important around it. Science does not know how to do that yet, so it will take a miracle. But I believe in miracles.

Personal:

I was born in 1973. Grew up in Moscow, Russia. Started running in 1984 and so far have never missed more than 3 consecutive days. Joined the LDS Church in 1992, and came to Provo, Utah in 1993 to attend BYU. Served an LDS mission from 1994-96 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Got married soon after I got back. My wife Sarah and I are parents of eleven children: Benjamin, Jenny, Julia, Joseph, Jacob, William, Stephen, Matthew, Mary, Bella. and Leigha. We home school our children.

I am a software engineer/computer programmer/hacker whatever you want to call it, and I am currently working for RedX. Aside from the Fast Running Blog, I have another project to create a device that is a good friend for a fast runner. I called it Fast Running Friend.

Favorite Quote:

...if we are to have faith like Enoch and Elijah we must believe what they believed, know what they knew, and live as they lived.

A.M. Did 5 with Benjamin, then 2 alone with a mile in 5:41.8, then 1.5 with Julia. Jenny had a sore muscle problem, ran only 0.5. Joseph had a cold, ran only 0.7. 0.25 with Jacob in 2:31 - his fasted time since he broke his leg. Then 2 more with 600 in 2:00. Total of 10.75.

A.M. Decided to try an experiment. I've done the 3 mile tempo stretch from 10.5 miles in the middle of the 20 mile run over the last three weeks hitting the times of 15:55, 16:05, and 16:06. So I wondered what would happen if I did it fresh. Benjamin and I drove to the Canyon View Park in the Provo Canyon, then he rode along with me on a bike as I did a 2 mile warm-up followed by the tempo run on the same downhill course, about 1-2% grade. I hit the splits of 5:18, 5:24, 5:22 to finish in 16:04.7. Essentially the same result as in the middle of a long run. This provides some food for thought. Obviously there is some limiting factor involved that is not fatigue related as it does not seem to matter if I've run a 2 mile warm-up or a 10 mile warm-up. But I do not know what to make of it. Need some time to think.

Jogged some more, then we dropped off Benjamin's bike at the park, and he ran 4.3 miles with me. He got going at the end and his last mile was 6:13. Got home ran another mile with Julia. She did a total of 1.5 with 0.5 with Jenny. Jenny could only do 0.5 because her leg was hurting. I ended up with a total of 11.5 miles.

P.M. 1.5 with Joseph in 12:59. William insisted on going for a run, so I ran 200 meters with him in 1:17. That was quite remarkable as he does not yet quite talk. He says things here and there, but you can never count on him understanding verbal instructions. And of course, he still wears a diaper. But he can run! Then did 0.25 with Jacob in 2:37. Then I decided to try another experiment. I did a calculation that if you turn over at 180 with a stride length of exactly 6 feet, that is 4:53 mile or 2:08:11 marathon, which is the goal I feel I should set my eyes on, even though it does appear unachievable. But that is what faith is all about. Achieving things that appear achievable is science, it takes no faith. If you want your faith to grow, you need to set your eyes on things that appear unachievable. Ironically, I've helped a lot of bloggers achieve what to them looked unachievable, but for me it was science. With myself, I do not have a mortal to ask advice from to whom what appears unachievable to me would be science. And I do not have the gift of beholding of angels, so all I've got is my faith and quiet whisperings of the Holy Ghost, which I hope I can hear and understand.

Anyway, I figured that 180 stride rate is about the highest sustainable for me in the marathon, also it appears to be a common denominator among the guys that run 2:08. I can sustain 180 stride rate in the marathon, so the missing link therefore is the stride length. The difference is that I do about 5 feet, while a world-class runner does about 6 feet. So I wanted to get a better feel for what its like to run with a 6 foot long stride length. I laid my "magic" squares out 6 feet apart for 102 feet, and did some strides. I wanted to know the highest possible stride rate I could get with this stride length. It was around 210. My fastest time was 4.8, which is around 15.4 for 100 meters. I really liked the feel of the stride. It felt like I was running a good quarter. So in other words, 6 foot stride length is not completely unnatural to me. It just takes something that I cannot quite grasp to extend it from a quarter to a longer distance. I wonder if the critical element is connected to being able to turn over at 240 at that stride length, and if I learned that, I'd be able to relax with 180 stride rate/6 foot stride length. In addition to learning the high turnover, maybe what I should try to do next is try to run with 180 stride length/6 foot stride rate and try to understand why it is not natural to me.

I figure I did about 0.25 in the strides. So about 2 miles for the evening run.

A.M.Pondered the issue of stride length. Recalled that one British coach suggested that stride length is affected by the range of motion in the hip extension and the strength of the plantar flexors, particularly the soleus. Remembered that back in 2008 Jeff and I measured the circumference of the calf and the quad with the following results:

Also recalled that in numerous studies running economy was correlated with the ballistic power of the ankle joint.

Combining all of the above - if you want to run efficiently you need to learn how to use your calves. For me that is not easy. My calves do not want to work. But I decided to start focusing on using the calves more.

Ran 4 miles first, did a 0.5 pickup in 2:40 to catch up to Sarah, then ran with her for 1.5 miles. Then took Benjamin and Joseph for a mile, then dropped Joseph off and did a workout with Benjamin. Focused on the calf action. We did 4x100 17.4, 17.4, 16.6, 17.1. Then 3x200 33.4, 34.0, the last one I challenged Benjamin to race me. I got 30.5, he did 31.4. That is the fastest I've gone in a 200 this year, and that is also Benjamin's PR.

Then dropped Benjamin off, and went for some more miles. Did a pickup over an odd distance - 2100 meters, this was the longest good stretch of the trail, in 7:01, one second slower than 5:20 average.

A.M. Ran 4 with Benjamin, then 1.5 with Jenny, Julia, and Joseph, 0.25 with Jacob in 2:17 - his new record since the broken leg. Then did 5 more in 32:55 with the last 0.75 in 4:08. Tried focusing on the calf push off. Seemed to help some, but it is still not a well practiced movement.

A.M. Did the long run with Chad Robinson. We ran 3 miles easy, then 1 mile pickup in 5:42, Chad handled it quite well. Then Chad ran with me to 8.5 turnaround. I ran another 1.5 (Bridal Veil Falls), then 0.5 jog and start the usual 3 mile tempo down the canyon. Focused on the calf push off again. I think it made a difference. Not so much in the speed as in the sustainability of the pace. I did 5:19, 5:23, 5:17 high for the total time of 15:59.9. The entire time I felt more in control than in other tempo runs, but I felt that could not go faster without losing the calf push off and overloading the quads. Last quarter was high 76. I caught Chad with about 600 to go, and he stuck with me for a quarter, then he fell back some when I kicked. His last 600 was around 2:00, which is an improvement.

We jogged some, and then ran the last 3 miles in 19:19 with the splits of 6:23, 6:36, 6:20. Chad did better that last week on this part as well improving overall by 13 seconds, 12 of which came from the last mile. What is more important, perhaps, is that he was more responsive to the pace never lagging behind and always maintaining contact.

Day of rest. Went to church. We had a lesson on honesty in Sunday School. Then a lesson on Priesthood in the Elder's Quorum, and then a fast and testimony meeting. Our Bishop's councilor told a story about two boys. One got a bunch of stuff for Christmas, and he went through it and said, is that all? The other got a box of manure and he started digging with excitement - there must be a pony there! I really liked that story.What a difference the ability to see a diamond amidst the dross can make!

A.M. Today is the 19th anniversary of my baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was baptized 19 years ago in a lake in Moscow. Incidentally, I had circled that lake frequently on my runs a few years prior.In the absence of religion of any kind, running gave e a thread of life support at that time to stay away from harmful substances that harm the body and cloud the mind and the spirit, and to avoid falling into depression in view of the grim political, social, economical, and spiritual climate of the Soviet Union in its final stages of existence. When the opportunity came, I learned the truth about God and His plan of Salvation, and accepted it. This helped me put my running into the proper context, and have a deeper reason to pursue this talent. So perhaps it is symbolic that I was baptized in that lake.

I was blessed with an interesting opportunity to celebrate it. A couple from Argentina that was baptized a year ago approached me at church and introduced me to the wife's brother whose name is Esteban. Esteban lives in Spain, but was here in Provo for a visit. He is a runner, so they were excited to have him meet another one. Our family is known in the neighborhood as "the family that runs", "the guy that is always running", "the guy that runs with his kids", or "el señor que corre con sus niños, y la señora tambien".

So I ran with Esteban this morning. Benjamin joined us for 4 miles. We caught up to Sarah and ran with her for about 0.8. I had a chance to speak some Spanish. It was nice to have a partner for most of the run. We averaged around 8:00 for 10 miles in spite of Esteban's being out of shape.

I found out Esteban was on his way to Las Vegas next, and gave him Jeff's number and e-mail.

Jenny and Julia ran 1.5. Joseph ran 1 mile. Jacob did 0.25. I ended up with a total of 11.4. I picked it up in the last mile and did 5:35.9.

A.M. Ran 4 with Benjamin, 1.5 with Jenny and Julia, 1.5 with Joseph, and 0.25 with Jacob. Then another 3.6 including a pickup for 2100 meters in 7:00.5. Again focused on the calf push off, and got results similar to Saturday. I felt a bit sluggish from the start, but the pace did not seem to get much harder as the run progressed. So it is harder to get going, but easier to maintain the pace. This is consistent with the idea that soleus is primarily made of slow-twitch fibers, so if you are able to delegate some of the quad work to the soleus, you will lose a little bit of initial spunk, but will be able to hold the pace for longer.

From that develops another thought. When you try to run fast, soleus would resist recruitment because it will think it is not fast enough and will want to delegate its work to other muscles that have more fast twitch fibers. So then the challenge is to train it to not be lazy at fast speeds.

I remember watching Haile Gebrselassie in the movie Endurance and noticing a very energetic calf action. It left me thinking for a while. It's been over 10 years, but I am still thinking. It is not so much the matter of calf strength - you can get calf strength by going to the gym, so if it was all the matter of strength, every gym bum that works out his calves would be a great runner. It is more about the art of significantly recruiting your calf when running for the purpose of forward motion thus relieving the burden of the quad. Perhaps the East Africans and few Caucasians have that art naturally somehow, while others have to work to develop it. Like singing voice.

A.M. Ran to the BYU track with Benjamin. We did a 200 meter challenge. Unfortunately it was not a good way to do it as both of us had diarrhea. So we were somewhat lethargic. But we both did OK more or less. I did 31.1, he was 31.4. I stayed behind him for the first 100, then outkicked him in the second. As soon as we finished we saw Jon Kotter. He was doing some 800s and 400s and told us he was embarrassed by the 2:11 800 splits. That is why he is a 28:48 10,000 meter runner. Not just because of that, but I believe this plays an important part. If you want to be good you need to see performances that are kind of good but do not reflect your true potential as unsatisfactory. One way to do it is to call the embarrassing. If a certain level of performance leaves you feeling naked you will be in a hurry to find some clothes.

Jon was about to do a quarter in 60. I decided to join him for the second half, and briskly jogged across the field to the start. This did not give me much rest from the first 200, but I was able to keep up with him with the 200 in 31.2.

Then Benjamin and I ran back. Total of 5.5 miles. I did 1.5 with Joseph, 1.5 with Jenny and Julia, 0.25 with Jacob, and 1.5 more alone with the last 0.75 in 4:09.0. Total of 10.25.

A.M. Started with 2 by myself, then 5 with Benjamin. We caught up to Sarah and ran with her for 1.5 miles. Jenny and Julia did 1.5 on their own. I did 1.5 with Joseph and 0.25 with Jacob. Then 2 more with the last 0.75 in 4:07.5. Again focused on the calf push-off. Total of 10.75.

A.M. Provo River Half Marathon - 1:12:08.6, first place. Curt called me last week as said he had signed me up and given bib #1. So I had to run and live up to the expectations.

Sarah prayed last night that I would run comfortably and alone. The important part of her prayer was answered - I did win, but it was not comfortable, and I was never alone. Which is good, I think, because a contested win teaches you more than a solo tempo run.The Lord gives you what you need, not necessarily what you asked for.

Come to think of it, the run was not that uncomfortable. I never felt like was done, could not hold the pace, etc.

I warmed up 2 miles, then saw Justin Park. He had run 1:10:41 in the Utah Valley Half this year, so I knew he was in good shape. We agreed to work together for as long as we could taking leads every 2 minutes.

At the start, Jon Kotter and Ian Hunter, who were not in the race, but just doing a hard workout along the race route, joined us. Justin and I stuck with our plan, while Ian and Jon ran with us, sometimes a little behind, sometimes a little ahead for the first 4 miles, then dropped us.

The splits in the first 4 miles, according to Curt's marks were 5:03, 5:07 (10:10), 5:26 (15:36), 5:09 (20:45). Maybe the third mile was a bit long, and the fourth a bit short, but I think the 4 miles were more or less accurate. They are down a fairly steep grade, and are quick.

Then it flattened out, but still some gradual downhill sections with flat breakups. Our split at the official 6 mile mark was 31:55, so 11:10 for 2 miles. Could have been right. I timed us on the triangle marks, and we were going somewhere in the 5:30-5:40 range.

The next mile was about a quarter on a mild downhill slope, and then the rest of it uphill and into the wind. It was Justin's turn to lead, and I wanted to pass him because he started going very slow and it felt too easy. I was also getting concerned that if we went that slow somebody might catch us from behind. Then I said to myself, just wait until it is your turn to lead, you'll find out why Justin was taking it so slow. I did. Having somebody to hide behind when you have a headwind makes a lot of difference. My effort on Justin's turns eventually normalized as the wind subsided.

We had mile 7 officially in 5:48 (37:43). I think it was short. We were barely moving on the uphill part. Next mile in 6:02 (43:45). Could possibly have been right, as we were done with the uphill and turned around. The next mile was long, possibly to make up for the short mile earlier. It was all downhill, we were on the move and we ended up with only 6:00 (49:45). This was followed by another short mile - 5:15 to hit the 10 mile marker in 55:00. I knew this one was short for sure because the triangle marks clocked us at 5:31. But mile marker 10 was more or less correct in sum.

At this point Justin started struggling, which surprised me some. He sat back for 4 minutes. But then he recovered and led at a good pace, so I rested behind him for 4 minutes.

Next mile was definitely short, 5:02 (1:00:02) - triangles showed around 5:34, followed by a long mile to make up - 5:58 (1:06:00), with triangles showing 5:36. Incidentally we covered my 3 mile tempo course in 16:41 which is not a bad time for the end of a half marathon.

At this point Justin was sitting back, and I decided it was time to start racing. I think when two runners are about equal, they should work together rather than actively try to break each other until the last mile. Maybe last two miles. But no more than that. The place outcome will be the same - the stronger one will be ahead, but early racing will hurt the times of both.

I knew that Justin's kick was better than mine. Therefore I needed a safe 5 second gap with 400 to go in order to win. I was OK with the pace we were going, but did not feel like I could pick it up enough to break him by running up front. Nevertheless, that was my only option. So I focused on the calf push off, and it resulted in a speed up of about 5-10 seconds a mile. This proved sufficient. I gapped him a little. Then I heard that he had closed it some, and got seriously concerned. One more push, smooth and steady. This time he did not cover the gap, but it was far from over. Without a sizable lead he can eat that gap with his kick. So I kept pressing with two purposes in mind. Increase the safety margin, and fatigue and demoralize the competitor to take the sting out of his kicking fangs. Running is an interesting sport. Most of the race you are working together. But then you start to race, and you are using mean tactics against your friends. They do the same to you. But when you finish you are still friends.

With 400 to go I said, there is no way I am losing this race, and started the best kick that I had in me. It ended up being good enough, and I won by 6 seconds.

Ran a 5 mile cool-down. Pace another runner. His name was Matt Chadwick. He ended up with around 1:46, but that included a long bathroom stop. He is planning on joining me next Saturday for a part of my run.

Day of rest. Went to church. We had an unusual meeting setup. The area authorities asked the stake presidency to give a training on the Priesthood to all Priesthood holders for the first two hours. I like the story from the 2002 April conference by Elder Condie quoting Wilford Woodruff taling about his missionary work in Missouri back in the day:

"The family were about to sit down to breakfast
as we came in. In those days it was the custom of the Missourians to ask you
to eat even though they were hostile to you; so he asked us to take breakfast,
and we were very glad of the invitation. He knew we were Mormons; and as soon
as we began to eat, he began to swear about the Mormons. He had a large platter
of bacon and eggs, and plenty of bread on the table, and his swearing did not
hinder our eating, for the harder he swore the harder we ate, until we got our
stomachs full; then we arose from the table, took our hats, and thanked him
for our breakfast. The last we heard of him he was still swearing. I trust the
Lord will reward him for our breakfast."

A.M.Did another 200 meter challenge with Benjamin. I ended up with 31.0, he got 31.6. Then we did one more in 36.1. It was supposed to be around 34, but I mis-paced it. We ran the last 0.5 miles in 2:51. Benjamin and I ended up with a total of 5.5 miles. Then I ran with the other kids. Jenny, Julia, and Joseph did 1.5. Jacob did 0.25. I ran some more and end up with 11 miles for the whole run.

A.M. Ran with the kids - Benjamin 4, Jenny and Julia ran 1.5 on their own, Joseph did 1.5 in 11:56 for which he earned a remote control car. Jacob did 0.5 in 4:31. Then I decided I needed to address the struggles I had lately getting up to speed in 200 meters and did some short hill sprints. 10 of them about 60 meters in length. Fastest one on the magic stretch was 9.8. Total distance 11.5 miles.

P.M. Did sprints with Joseph, Jacob, and William, and then ran a quarter with Joseph in 1:45.

A.M. Got up early to run with Benjamin before his Youth Conference. We did 4 miles. I did a pickup for 0.5 in 2:41. Felt sluggish. Then ran 4 more. Decided to do a pickup for a mile to see if I'd feel any better. Surprised myself with a 5:19 mile that came with work, but no heroic effort. Then ran with Joseph, Jenny, Julia, and Jacob. Jenny, Joseph and Julia did 1.5. Jacob did 0.5. I did total of 11 miles.

A.M. Ran 5 miles with Benjamin in 35:44. He ended up setting a 5 mile PR on accident since his old PR was rather weak and was set in the middle of a 10 K 3 years ago. Then did 1.5 with Joseph. Jenny ran 1.5, Julia did 2. Jacob ran 0.5. I did hill sprints afterwards with Tyler. It was nice to have Tyler around for those as he was a sprinter in high school with 11.0 100 meters PR. We went to the same stretch where I did those on Wednesday, about 60 meters long at maybe a 6% grade - need to measure it. At first it seemed that I was stuck at 9.8. But then I decided to start focusing on Tyler as a visual cue to indicate if I was running faster or slower while adjusting my form and power timings. This gave me a breakthrough. At first I ran a couple of 9.7s, then 9.5, and the last one in 9.4.

A.M. 20 mile run from my house to Bridal Veil Falls and back. Felt sluggish somewhat. First half was in 1:12:52. Then turned around and ran a tempo for the last 10. Was stuck at 5:48, but at least was consistent for the first 4 miles. Then I got out of the canyon and all of a sudden felt like I was in a sauna. It was not too warm, maybe 75 F, but there was more humidity than what I am used to. In any case, it did not feel good. I held my own for another 3 miles with 7 miles in 40:54, and then started laying serious goose eggs - 6:04, 6:15, and 6:06 for the last mile with a heroic effort. The Spanish branch elders were playing soccer at about 18.7 mark (yes, I know that course well enough to tell to you how far along you are with 0.1 precision). They gave me some encouragement which I needed at that point. I ended up with 59:19 for the last 10 miles and total of 2:12:11 for 20 miles.

Afterwards I felt quite miserable for some time, but after getting some fluids in I recovered.

We had a baptism in our ward in the afternoon. A mother with her three children got baptized. They are originally from Wyoming. She got tired of the party life style in her town, came to Utah, and requested the missionaries to teach her.

The children ran on their own - all except Joseph. Benjamin did 5, Jenny and Julia 1.5, and Jacob 0.5.

Day of rest. Went to church as usual. We had a lesson on tithing in Sunday School. The lesson in the Elder's Quorum was on the law of chastity. The sacrament meeting program had to be simplified somewhat with the youth talk postponed until next week due to the four confirmations of the family that got baptized the day before. Benjamin did not mind, as he was the youth speaker. The talks were on self-reliance and living within our means.

On that subject, there are two very funny and telling ads in Orem. One is on the freeway. There is a picture of a man celebrating. He is so happy that he looks like he had just won the Olympic gold medal. The text underneath explains the reason for his joy - bankruptcy. The other is on Orem Center street and says: "Live debt free. 801-BANKRUPT"

I laugh at those ads, but I do find them rather disturbing. Orem is a predominantly LDS area. I highly doubt that the ad is directed primarily to those outside of the Church. I recognize that there are times when you have to declare bankruptcy. Maybe you do not have a job and you just got hit with a $200 K medical bill. Something crazy like that. The ad is not directed to those individuals either. How is it that we go to church, listen to a multitude of talks on self-reliance and avoiding debt, nod our heads in agreement, and then go and spend ourselves into a bankruptcy? Then those outside of the Church laugh at us - "look, Utah is leading the nation in bankruptcies - that's because they have a lot of children and pay tithing", and we get laughed at for a good reason because we deserve it. We should know better. Trying to keep one foot in the Lord's Kingdom with the other being in the world results in a serious hip adductor injury.

A.M. Ran with Tyler. First we did 5 miles with Benjamin in 39:24. During the run I gave Benjamin a math problem around mile 4 mark. Integrate x^7+x^5 from 0 to 1. It took him about a quarter mile to solve it. The answer was 7/24. Then I gave him another - find the minimum of x^2 - 6*x. He struggled some, but solved it after I reminded him to take the derivative and find the root. The answer to that one was -9 achieved when x = 3. A less violent method of solving it is to notice that x^2-6*x = x^2 - 6*x + 9 - 9 = (x -3)^2-9 . Since the smallest (x-3)^2 can be in the real domain is 0, the smallest x^2-6*x can get is -9 and it happens when x = 3.

Then we took Jenny and Julia for 1.5. I was in the math mood, so I had them calculate 2^3. Jenny solved it right away, but to give Julia a chance to solve it showed me the answer (8) on her fingers using the traditional unary system (one finger for each count). The next problem was find the biggest number you can count to on your fingers. Jenny correctly observed that you can count up to 15 with only 5 fingers using the binary system, but struggled to name the number that can be reached with 10. With 10 fingers you can count up to 1023. The trick is that each finger can be in two states - up or down. With N fingers you can count up to 2^N - 1. That is if you agree that all fingers down is a zero. If you want to get fancy, you can agree that all fingers down is a 1, and shift everything else one up, then you get 2^N. One more problem for Jenny - 64^(1/2). She struggled some, then figured out it was 8. Then she did 121^(1/2) - the answer to that was 11, and 27^(1/3) which is 3.

Then we ran 1.5 with Joseph and 0.5 with Jacob. Then 3 more on our own. We did a mile pickup in 5:16.2. Our splits were 79, 78, 81, 78. The 81 involved going under the bridge, which is a nasty rhythm breaker. So in essence it was a very steady run. This is incidentally a new mile PR for Tyler. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it felt. Last week I struggled to run 5:23 even though I did not feel like the race on Saturday had taken a whole lot out of me. This time I felt knocked out pretty bad by the heat on Saturday, and quite miserable for a while after the run. So I was expecting something similar to last Saturday, but it was not. I wonder if this was because I was stronger, or because I had Tyler with me. Of course, in this range of speed there is a lot of room for error and tricking yourself that you are feeling better or worse than you really do as it is still some distance away from all out race pace.

A.M. Ran 5 with Benjamin in 37:29. We caught up to Sarah and ran a mile with her. She did 8:00. That is her fastest mile since giving birth to Stephen who turned 1 yesterday. Then 1.5 with Jenny, Julia, and Joseph, and 0.5 with Jacob. Then 5 more miles which included 10 hill sprints on the same stretch. Being alone did not help - my fastest one was only 9.9 compared to 9.4 when doing it with Tyler. Total of 12 miles.

P.M. 2 miles with Sarah on a bike, and pushing Stephen in the stroller in 15:38.

A.M. Ran with Tyler. Started with 5 miles with Benjamin. Then 0.5 with Jacob and Joseph, and 1.5 with Jenny and Julia. Then 5 more without the kids. Picked up in the last 2. Did 5:55, 5:42 - 11:37 total. This is a new 2 mile record for Tyler.

A.M. Total of 12.2. Did a warm up of about 0.5, a pickup of 0.7 at about 6:00 pace, then paced Sarah for the last 1000 meters of her fast mile which she did in 7:53. Ran another 0.5 with her, then 1.5. with Jenny and Julia, 0.5 with Jacob, Joseph, and Jenny (Jenny got 2 miles), then 1 more with Benjamin and Joseph (Joseph got 1.5 miles), then 4 more with Benjamin (Benjamin got 5 miles). Then 3 more with a mile in 5:17.5. I was happy with that because it started getting very warm, 79 degrees and I could feel it.
P.M. 2 miles with Sarah on a bike and William and Steven in the stroller in 15:36.

A.M. 10 miles in 1:11:47 before going to the chess tournament with Benjamin. Did a pickup in the last 0.25. Jenny and Julia did 1.5. Jacob did 0.5..

P.M. 3 miles with Benjamin after the chess tournament. Joseph ran 1.5 with us. We did a pickup in the last 0.25. At the tournament we played 4 games. I drew one, won one, and lost two. Benjamin won two and lost two. After this tournament his rating is now 1526. I am still ahead, but not by much (1532), and likely not for long. However, I am happy that I have been able to improve alongside with Benjamin and be a decent partner for him.

Day of rest. Went to church. Had lessons on missionary work and on the role of women. The Sacrament meeting talks were on the role of women as well. Then picked up my mother at the airport in the afternoon. Her flight was re-routed at the last minute due to the hurricane problems in New York, so she ended up flying through Paris. She will stay with us for a few weeks.

A.M. Total of 12. 5 with Benjamin, 1.5 with Jenny and Julia (Joseph did 0.75), 0.5 with Jacob, 5 more alone. Ran the last 2.5 in 14:22.9. Felt it was too warm.

P.M. Decided it was time to change into a new pair of Crocs. The old one started developing holes. It lasted only a bit over 1200 miles. I wonder if it is because I did more speed work. On the positive side of things, the holes have developed more or less symmetrically. So maybe I am experiencing subtle changes in the form in the direction of symmetry. Ran 2 miles in 14:52.

A.M. Ran 5 with Benjamin in 36:13. We did a couple of pickups including a 500 meter stretch in 1:40. 0.5 with Jacob and Joseph. 1.5 with Jenny and Julia. 5 more alone including hill sprints - 10 as usual up about a 60 meter stretch. The fastest time was 10.0.